Cartel

They’ve crafted a video valentine to MySpace and entered into an ill-fated promotional venture with a soda pop and MTV, so if one thing’s for sure, it’s that Atlanta bubble-punk outfit Cartel is more than willing to give up personal freedom for a crack at mass attention, even if huge sales have eluded them up to this point. Perhaps this 90th-rate Superchunk will find the fame they’ve been bending over backwards for thanks to signing one of those those of-the-moment, all-encompassing 360 deals with Wind-Up Records, which has the likes of Creed and Finger Eleven on its list of past successes.

The new album by Cartel–who lived their life on webcam for a month while they recorded said record–has had its release date pushed back a month, to Aug. 21. Does this mean more MTV time? A new system allowing anyone who has Dr Pepper points left over to get more Webcam face time? More »

Last night brought a close to the web-TV synergy chapter of Band In A Bubble, where the band Cartel was hung out to dry on the Hudson River for 20 days while recording an album. Our recap of last night’s episode–which included an actual live performance of some songs!–after the jump.

It’s time for another installment of Bubble Boyz With Electric Toyz, in which we give an overview of the televised component of the Dr Pepper/MTV/Wal-Mart/KFC/oh yeah, there’s some band too-sponsored project Dr Pepper Band In A Bubble. On Saturday night, MTV aired the third episode of the miniseries.

Did you know that the series’ fourth, and final, episode airs tomorrow? It seems like only yesterday that we were wondering if this whole thing would work. And after watching Saturday’s episode–which tracked the band’s adventures up through last week’swall collapse–we’re pretty sure that it hasn’t, unless you count “lots of gratuitous Dr Pepper logo shots” as “working.”

This morning, we were planning on recapping the second episode of Band In A Bubble, the publicity stunt/rare bit of music-related programming on MTV that’s been shunted to the Saturdays-at-8 ratings graveyard, but any drama ginned up by the show’s editors probably pales in comparison to what went… More »

Last night, MTV showed its first episode of Band In A Bubble, the 20-day multimedia stunt that will track the pop-emo band Cartel as it attempts to write and record an album while encased in a fishbowlish house/recording studio on the West Side of Manhattan. Since it’s rare these days for MTV to have an actual half-hour program that’s about the process of music-making, as opposed to the celebrity that comes after it, we decided to jump into the recapping business–a task that will be no small feat, given that the program is already being jerked around MTV’s schedule–with our whenever-it-airs recap, “Bubble Boyz With Electric Toyz.”

Episode 1, which was broadcast from right outside the bubble, set up the show, sealed the band inside its tricked-out digs, and gave the the guys their first task: They have to write (and record) a song, and it will premiere on an episode of TRL next week.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the stunt next month involving pop-punkers Cartel; they’re going to record their next album in a camera-equipped “bubble” on Manhattan’s West Side that’s bigger than most of the apartments there, and people can, presumably, watch them eat, sleep, and work out the wheedly three-chord tunes live the entire time, thanks to the Internet. While we’re pretty dubious about any claims that “rock history” can be made by copying a pseudo-event that was first done in Australia three years ago, we’re surprised that no one has mentioned another small detail about this whole thing: